


Bromeliad

by problematic-fave (salt_and_burn)



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Drabble, Gen, I need to stop making Dean metaphorical concepts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 17:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5137196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salt_and_burn/pseuds/problematic-fave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"...In some species, the flower remains unseen, growing deep in the base of the plants." </p><p>Seth has been thinking about plants lately, and about Dean. Mostly, he's been thinking about Dean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bromeliad

**Author's Note:**

> PLANTS

Dean is a bromeliad, Seth thinks. It explains why he thrives best pressed between Seth and Roman, can function and look pretty alone, but seems to falter somewhat without them. Explains why Dean was so unstable without them, would flit wildly from the kind of toxic bravado that made him a name in CZW to the kind of broken, desperate aggression he turned on himself in the quiet hours and the dark mornings and the too-long nights. It explains his brilliant, surprisingly beautiful hidden depths, the things that huddle safe inside him until they're sprung, bright and shocking and intrinsically wonderful (as exposed secrets are), on he and Roman like tiny, jewel-coloured frogs leaping from the inner recesses of Dean's heart. It explains the way he loves them too, like he's desperate to force a fit between the three of them. All or nothing. Both or none.

Seth had seen a bromeliad in Roman's mother's garden once, stapled to a board and leant against a tree. He and Roman had stood perplexed under the cover of the porch, watching as Dean crouched in the pouring rain, gentle hands trying to pull away the moss growing across the wood, choking the little pink plant. He'd spent a good five minutes on his knees in the mud shimmying the board out of the depression many years of rest will make, spent another five trying to angle it so the plant could fill a little with rain water. He'd eventually given up when Roman had started calling him back in, told him to let it alone before he got struck by lightning and made Seth cry. They'd watched him gently cup the brittle, drooping leaves and flesh, trying to coax the small thing to open just a little, before finally coming back in, shivering and wet and miserable looking. Roman had sat with Dean and pulled all the splinters out of his hands while Seth dried his hair, taking pity on him and saying he was sure Roman's mom would go out once the storm was over and fix it up, if Dean was that invested in a plant of all things. Roman had given him a soft smile over Dean's head, but Dean had only shrugged and shifted further into the seat. 

"No point. It's as good as dead anyway. Needed to be up in a tree, not left to rot on the ground like that."

Roman's smile had disappeared, replaced by the furrow in his brow, and Seth tried to forget the conversation after that.

Now, he thinks he understands. He understands what it makes them to Dean, anyway. The way Dean loves Roman is constant, marrow deep, almost pure in purpose and ease, like breathing, or having bones. Roman is the tree Dean is bound to, is his towering structure of strength and support and guidance, keeping him off the ground, giving him the chance to reach air and light and life among the canopy. The two of them are bound together, glued, inseparable. If it wasn't for the way Roman lights up inside like he's swallowed the sun whenever Dean touches him, it would seem unequal. But Dean is the joy, the colour, the bright heartbeat in Roman's life, and Seth doubts Roman would want their love to be anything different from what it is, where he can hold Dean tight and safe in the towering boughs of his heart and arms; can hold him high above the rest of the world as if to say 'Isn't he beautiful? Isn't he perfect? He's mine, and you can't even touch him unless I let you.'

The way Dean loves Seth is like lightning, like a tropical storm. It can rush in and flood them both over in a matter of seconds, leave them gasping and gagging on it as they stand drenched in the downpour. It can also be bone dry and heavy hot air, like storm clouds gathering on the horizon, more noticeable because of the lack of immediate presence than otherwise, but always there, hovering, murmuring, in the background. Seth is the rain to Dean, is needed to fill the hollow chambers of his heart, to turn the empty spaces into cool, deep pools in which he can hide the many secret parts of himself, like tiny creatures in the curled centre of a plant. Seth fills Dean to overflowing, always, because he knows Dean keeps him after the storm has gone, keeps stores of his water to tide him through the dry spells until their next frantic, flooding encounter. 

Dean needs Seth to survive, and he needs Roman to survive Seth, to hold him tight and stop his body crashing to the forest floor when he fills with the weight of love that Seth brings him. He needs Seth in all his overwhelming, inconstant intensity differently to the ever present steady hum between him and Roman, but all the same, he'd die without the two of them. Dean is a bromeliad, a heart made for drowning in love and a body like a star burst craving a lover's grounding touch. He hides his flowers deep inside himself, shares the small bodies of his secrets rather than blooms of overt love with them, but he's so beautiful to them anyway, an oasis for their thirsty hearts and throats. They look with the bright eyes and curious hands of scientists, of botanists, fill their minds with the wonders Dean presents to them just by existing, amazed at how succulent a thing he's grown from such hard, wiry roots. Roman and Seth plunge deep, drink the cool clear water that rests inside Dean like blood in the chambers of his heart, know the taste and scent and shape of him as only two people intrinsic to his growth could. This rainforest made of each other thrives. Love keeps growing.

**Author's Note:**

> I had no internet for three days and went walking in the garden and developed feelings over my mother's one very lonely, very poorly bromeliad. I'm sorry, I don't know how these things keep happening. Some more bromeliad facts that reminded me of our dear Dean:
> 
> Root systems vary according to plant type - epiphytic bromeliads only grow hard, wiry roots to attach themselves to trees and rocks. 
> 
> Some are faintly scented, others heavily perfumed. One smells like clove spice.
> 
> Bromeliads can live in a vast array of environments due to adaptations. Eg 'scales or hairs' which capture water in cloud forests and reflect sunlight in deserts.
> 
> Some have developed the "tank habit" - forming a tightly bound leaf structure to capture water and nutrients in the absence of a well-developed root system. A wide variety of organisms _take advantage_ of these pools:  
>  "A study of 209 plants from the Ecuadorian lowlands identified 11,219 animals, representing more than 300 distinct species, many of which are found only on bromeliads."


End file.
